A huge cache of Canadian history, stored for 200 years in three wooden chests held at a British estate, is set to be auctioned next month in London — a possible test of whether the controversy-plagued, funding-challenged Library and Archives Canada is still in the business of acquiring newly available treasures of documentary heritage. An extensive and important collection of letters, maps and other original artifacts left to posterity by Sir John Coape Sherbrooke — the Nova Scotia governor who conquered Maine during the War of 1812 and later served as Canada’s governor general — is to be sold on June 19 as the showcase lot in a major Bonhams auction of rare books and manuscripts.

A large, coloured and “exceptionally fine” map of the village of York and the Lake Ontario shoreline that was created for Sherbrooke in 1817 — showing the future Toronto in such minute detail that individual homes are depicted — is a highlight of the sale, appearing on the cover of the auction catalogue.

The estimated value of Sherbrooke’s papers is between $160,000 and $230,000 — coincidentally close to the $170,000 spent by LAC’s recently resigned national archivist, Daniel Caron, in travel and other expenses over the past two years.

The collection has been known to scholars for decades. In fact, LAC curators had obtained copies of most of the items by the early 1970s, recognizing Sherbrooke’s significance as a 19th-century colonial administrator in British North America and notable British military officer during the Napoleonic Wars under the Duke of Wellington.

The Ottawa-based national archive does possess some manuscripts from Sherbrooke, and would typically be interested in acquiring any additional original material from a major Canadian historical figure such as Sherbrooke.

But with LAC facing deep budget cuts, wrenching restructuring and leadership turmoil over the past few years, historians have decried the institution’s reduced research services and limited capacity to acquire new material for its holdings.

At the same time, however, the Conservative government has pumped tens of millions of dollars into commemorations of the three-year bicentennial of the War of 1812, casting the conflict as a pivotal precursor to the Confederation agreement struck a half-century later.

Sherbrooke is particularly remembered for co-ordinating the defence of Nova Scotia during the war and, in August 1814, leading a successful offensive that placed much of present-day Maine in British possession. The conquered territory dubbed “New Ireland” was returned to the U.S. when the war ended, but Sherbrooke’s victory had considerably strengthened the British-Canadian position during peace negotiations.

Sherbrooke’s control over commercial activity in the Atlantic borderlands also brought in significant revenues to colonial coffers — funds that were used to create what became Dalhousie University.

Sherbrooke’s papers have been passed down through several generations of his family. Among the documents are letters written and received throughout the War of 1812 as well as during postwar negotiations with U.S. officials over boundaries and exploration of the continental interior.

The collection includes vintage maps of several Canadian cities in addition to York/Toronto — including Montreal, Quebec, Halifax and Kingston — as well as the Sherbrooke coat of arms displayed at his funeral in 1830.

“The maps are indeed a remarkable survival,” Simon Roberts, a Bonhams books and manuscripts specialist, told Postmedia News. “There are a few printed ones, but the majority are manuscript — drawn up by hand, and certainly some for Sherbrooke in his official capacity as member of the government.”

He added that, “the originals have not been made available” to researchers, “and as far as we aware, there seems little if any scholarship based on the maps.”

Roberts noted that the wooden chests — emblazoned with Sherbrooke’s name — “are fabulously evocative. … The maps were certainly kept in them and it is highly unusual that such original chests would have survived so many years, and still be used for their original purpose.”

Sherbrooke served from 1816 to 1818 as governor-general of the Canadas — today’s Ontario and Quebec — and distinguished himself as a unifier of French and English populations in a province where, today, he is immortalized in the name of a major city and one of Montreal’s main streets.

“It might seem surprising that a military man of violent temper and indifferent health should have achieved such remarkable success in making the constitution of Lower Canada work harmoniously and in winning the confidence and respect of colonists of all parties,” historian Peter Burroughs wrote of Sherbrooke in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. “The secret of Sherbrooke’s success lay in a declared determination to combat factionalism and adopt a neutral stance, allied with the necessary independence of mind to pursue these objectives unswervingly and the engaging frankness of manner to convince all kinds of men of his probity and even-handedness.”